Culture And Memory

Bengal United: The Story of Bangladeshi Football in Tower Hamlets

This project will tell the story of organised football within the Bengali community in Tower Hamlets since the origins of large-scale Bangladeshi migration to the Borough in the early 1970s. Despite its importance to Bengali community life over the last 50 years - and to the history of migration, anti-racist movements and cultural integration in Britain - this story has never been publicly documented. In our 25th year, we want to collect and conserve the heritage before it is lost forever, and to make it publicly accessible. Young volunteers will be trained to research this important element of their local history and to collect the oral histories and personal ephemera of people involved in the story from the 1970s to the present day. The project will culminate in an online resource, touring exhibition and publication, with the material collected also housed permanently at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives.